Sherlock's Steven Moffat

Sherlock creator and Dr Who screenwriter Steven Moffat was in Paris to talk about the second series about Britain's most famous detective

Were you surprised by the level of success you've had with Sherlock?

You’d have to be surprised by this level of success. Mark [co-creator Mark Gatiss] and I thought Sherlock would be a snob hit; that it might get some good reviews and maybe a few awards. But its time slot was brought radically forward. We hadn’t completed post-production on it and they wanted to put it out in three weeks. We said "it literally won’t be ready" and we had to squeeze one more week out of them. So we had no big moment of fear about it because we didn't have time. The paint was barely dry on the film by the time it was first shown. And it was – and this isn’t an idol boast, it is simply true –  an instant hit! Everyone was talking about it the next day. All the reviews were extraordinary. It was like: finish making the show, instant hit. We are aware that we are at the centre of something that we’ll never be at the centre of again.

How do you take things from the original books – items like Holmes’ famous pocket watch for example – and give them a modern twist?

To be absolutely honest, It wasn’t a case of how can I adapt the pocket watch into the modern day because that would be very clever. I needed him [Sherlock] to make some utterly brilliant deductions in this opening episode. I remembered, when I was a kid, thinking that the ones with the pocket watch were absolutely amazing and possibly remain the best sequence of deductions anywhere. I thought "can I put it in?" so I was ripping him [Doyle] off. I was trying to look clever by borrowing from the master. A pocket watch to a mobile phone is reasonably clever but frankly not as clever as having come up with the deductions in the first place. Mark and I are so in love with the original that we never stray very far from it. But Sherlock has to be its own thing.

How do you find time to do Sherlock and Dr Who?

We had a scheduling meeting which is the most depressing thing I've ever seen. I mean we never had a scheduling meeting for the first two years of Sherlock and Dr Who, which is a much better idea. You will see that, in terms of time, it doesn't fit. It can’t fit! At some point you’re going to have to write the script really fast. Scandal in Belgravia is the one that I wrote really fast. You might have a Dr Who producer there saying "I want him"... well in a turf war, you never want to be the turf. I sat and drank a whole bottle of wine. You can’t plan these things – there’s no way it works. It doesn't! Except it does. Somehow you get there. You just can't think about it.

Do the constraints of television restrict your writing?

I don’t think anyone has ever stopped us doing anything and so I’ve never found the limits of television limiting. These shows are exactly what we wanted them to be. OK, overseas shooting is expensive. But I'm automatically television hardwired. I don’t really think in those [television or film] terms. I think we’re ambitious with the shows and I don’t think there’s anything that we couldn’t do. But the limits of television are pretty bloody wide. We don't have to have a boring action fight every five minutes. That's freedom as far as I'm concerned.

The show has received praise for its interactive relationship between Sherlock and the viewer through clues that you plant throughout an episode. Is it difficult to write with this in mind?

Well we do things in reverse order. We made and wrote Scandal in Belgravia as the last of the three. Reichenbach Fall was the first. Planting clues isn’t very hard because you know what you’re doing. Just like a magic trick isn’t difficult if you know how to do it.

So is there a clue to understanding how Sherlock survives the fall at the end of series two?


It may or may not be in there. You might be looking at complete phantoms.

Why do you get rid of Moriarty so soon?

Moriarty is a one shot deal in the original. I don’t want it to turn into a show that is about one villain and one hero. One of the temptations with success is to keep repeating your hits. We need to find new villains and new ideas otherwise the show doesn't keep growing. Moriarty was great because he was a surprise. Every time you bring him back he won't be as big a surprise. To compare to my other shows, I always say new monsters are better in Dr Who because you fall in love with a monster when he’s new. It's the same with Moriarty. There are other great villains in Doyle that we want to visit. But we have to keep the show growing. Otherwise it won't surprise you. Once you get the measure of it, you’ll get critical. If we keep surprising you and keeping you off balance then you won't.

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